yoink

seriously, you'll get accused of being 'above it all' I know. I'm a terrible person.

I actually agree with parts of that editorial. I think the function of the press should be to relate news with clarity to the public, but he's right when he's said that the 'scoring of points' mentality has been getting worse for some time, and I think that detracts from the quality of the reporting. Minor errors in words when the intent is clear isn't news. It shouldn't be reported as a huge deal. Deliberately setting out to trap the person being interviewed is not conducive to telling the right story that is really in the public interest. This type of reporting necessarily forces outlets to take sides - those deliberately seeking the 'gotcha' moments, and those that feel the need to defend when they happen. In the middle of it the more important news is lost in the noise.

Correction - you asked me what my worst fantasy was. That answer is far to personal to share with you. So no, I didn't respond.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39937258 Didn't even take that long... 'Trump defends absolute right to share facts with Russia'. The thing about diplomats is that they're professional orators. They excel at saying nothing that they haven't precisely thought through beforehand. They're also specifically taught how to encourage other people to talk more openly so they can try and gather information, just like professional intelligence officers are. That's not a problem when all the players are of a relatively equal skill. They all know what's going on and how to avoid it. I'm sure it's a bit of a game to them. But when a neophyte enters the game who has access to every piece of sensitive information on the table, then all bets are off. Even if the Russia-gate stuff had never happened you can bet that the Russians would still be telling any of their diplomats who got access to Trump to flatter and empathize with him just to get him to talk - because he's bad at a game they're very good at... I'm sure every other country is doing the same. I would. Someone in the Whitehouse needs to get Trump on a crash course on manipulation. He's a natural at if for everyday stuff, but he's out of his league when dealing with professionals.

Every single thread Ron joins in always devolves into religious sniping. He cites some tenant of faith and everyone rushes to prove how it's wrongly applied, misquoted, misinterpreted or fallacious, and I'm as guilty of this as anyone. In the ensuing scuffle any value the thread has is always lost. I'm not going to bite anymore. My attitude to Ron's faith-based posts from now on is going to be 'It must be nice to be able to think like that'. But that's it. I'm not going to try and convince him he's wrong, and I'm not going to take anything he says into account for my arguments. I suggest people here all do similar. Just let it wash over you.

Ron, you're not worried because you have Faith. Faith that God elected Trump. Faith that anything Trump does is part of God's plan. But that's what faith is - belief in something despite no evidence to support it, or even evidence to the contrary. Me. I'm worried. I'm worried that he's not up to the task. I'm worried that he cares more about himself and his image than the nation. I'm worried that the commander-in-chief has such a thin skin that he responds to jibes over Twitter.

WikiLeaks has offered a $100,000 bounty for the tapes of conversations between Trump and Comey... presumably to employees who might have access to them or to hackers. https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/863088282686472192/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Flive%2Fworld-us-canada-39866259 There is also an argument that this would be funding a federal crime. While hilarious, my gut feel is that this is a REALLY bad way for any investigatory process to be going and would degrade trust in due process. More and more I'm convinced that the principle of wikileaks is a threat to our society. It can be corrupted too easily.

I do wonder how much of this is a 6-degrees-of-separation sort of thing, though. For a company as large as MLB it's likely that they've won an award in most countries if you look far enough back, or follow enough threads. This isn't the sort of news that matters - it's a distraction from real, actual stuff and would only strengthen the 'it's a conspiracy against Trump!' crowd's position. If it could be proven that the firm was chosen BECAUSE of some sort of Russian link that would be something else, but it won't be, so this shouldn't be anything other than a passing 'ha! irony!' soundbite. I hope the news agencies don't get distracted by this.

https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Made-Cheese-Chris-Kjorness-ebook/dp/B01MZ0RUTX/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494613142&sr=8-1&keywords=the+moon+is+made+of+cheese

I read his posts because it gives me all of the lunatic fringe talking points in one place. There is that.

Only if you're not a political outlier... Not if you honestly and vehemently believe that he can't do any wrong. That's why I made the religious fundamentalist simile with Rush - logic and rationality doesn't have anything to do with opinion. It's very difficult for people who don't have the same level of blind faith to understand that mindset. I suspect Rush genuinely thinks that the president is doing fine and that every suggestion otherwise is an outright fabrication, because that suits his world-view. It's like having an argument with someone who just replies 'nope', 'nope' 'nope' to every point you make - whatever it might be... You could construct the most logical, rational, and evidence-supported discussion point in history and the reply would be 'nope'. You just can't beat it. Its irrationality defies any logical contention. And to be clear - these posts aren't intended as criticism of Ruchmc. He's entitled to his opinion... It's more of a criticism of posters who seem to value rationality and discussion yet continually respond to a lunatic. Does. Not. Compute.

Has anyone else noticed that he's the only one defending Trump? While it's entirely possible he's just doing it to be contrarian and argumentative, it is kind of funny that all the other staunch right wing conservatives have fallen silent. At least in defense of Trump. There's still a few "Obama did it" or "Clinton did it" comments, but that's about it. Why people respond to Rush at all is beyond me... My blood pressure has certainly gone down since I started ignoring his tripe in here. Like I said in another thread, every single reply of his is a formulaic rehash of about 8 standard retorts, none of which bring anything new to the conversation. That isn't a discussion among adults - it's the blathering of an 8 year old. You guys realize that you'll NEVER get his to change his opinion, right? He doesn't want a discussion. He doesn't want different sources of information. He's the political equivalent of a religious fundamentalist. Just ignore him and he'll eventually go away.

Well said, Wendy.

I've been out of skyfalling for about 6 years and recently stopped at the San Diego tunnel on a whim as I was passing. I did a couple of minutes on my belly without any problems but man, the back flying is about a thousand times harder than I remember it being in the sky! Apparently I've lost the ability to understand what 'keep your hips square' means or feels like. I got a couple of short flights in the 6 minutes I had, but spent most of it scooting around the net on my arse. Still lots of fun though. I can see how folks get addicted to it.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39878128 You know what, Ms Saunders? I completely believe you on that.

It's Obama's fault. LOL! Hillary was worse. It's fake news. why U mad, bro? Clinton did it first. here's proof [insert fringe right wing publication link corroborating statement]. here's proof [insert mainstream publication link that doesn't prove anything (and also contradicts the statement) but contains the same phrase somewhere in the text]. Lol! Trump won! Lol! You guys are mad! Trump won the popular vote - get over it! The democrats are just mad and reaching for anything! It's still Obama's fault. Congratulations. You are now fluent in rushmc debate linguistics.

Don't feed the trolls, Bill. You should know better.

This is a very real, genuine concern. I think we're going to be shocked at how fast voter-apathy is going to set in. I think unless something nuclear happens in the next 6 months, Trump will have set the precedent for how the next several presidents conduct their business, at least. More than I can ever remember, spin, out right lies and braggadocio are the tools of statecraft - at least internally. And if it works, even a little, we'll only see more of it.

I give it 2 weeks until Trump sends McCain a letter firing him, too. Even if he can't.

The solution to a poorly thought out system isn't to rush through another poorly thought-out system and hope it's better. That's insane. That congress can approve something before any serious costing or investigation is done of the bill is equally insane. That's them failing at their job and putting politics before the welfare of the people they represent. 'Well, I hear Bob say's it's pretty good, so yeah. It gets my vote!'

Tell them you are going to abolish Social Security and Medicare, then watch how quickly they suddenly become socialists. Well DUH. We're against the BAD sort of socialism. The kind that is really bad and benefits bad people. Anything that's good for me isn't Socialist. It's Americanism. We keep that!

Not to everyone. And, for some, until they go to use their TrumpCare and find out they're up the proverbial creek. Then, and maybe only then, they might just ask themselves what they voted for. Jerry Baumchen they won't put 2 and 2 together like that. It'll still be Obama's fault.

In its present form it's DOA in the Senate. Bet you 50 bucks Trump is on the evening news talking about how this is a big triumph despite that.

If your election has shown anything is that rational discussion will lead to absolutely nothing. The only way for him to get elected is for millions and millions of Americans being absolutely fine with that level of discourse and to be "on that level". Elections aren't won on policy. They're won on emotion. Fuck facts. Lie if it sounds good - there won't be any repercussions.

Which is totally opposite to how I thought the internet would change society about 15 years ago. I honestly believe the internet is one of the most important inventions mankind has ever made - it's up there with the wheel and fire for me. The free, almost limitless access to information, news, training, opinions, education made me think that there was no excuse for people to be ignorant any more - we'd have a much more informed, rational society. Instead, with no training on how to parse good information from bad, the prevalence of deliberately manipulative data and the huan habit of gravitating towards information that you already have a bias for all seem to have made society progress in the opposite direction. Like you said, the western world seems to be getting more ignorant, less informed and more insular. My hoped for social Renaissance was dead on arrival.